John Taylor Gatto
Puppet factory. Confession of a school teacher
I dedicate this book to my granddaughter,
whose name is translated from Icelandic
means "Holy Scripture".
Shine and shine in the darkness, Gvutrun!
John Taylor Gatto He worked as a teacher in the Manhattan public schools for twenty-six years. He has a number of state awards for outstanding achievements in the field of education. In 1991 he was recognized as New York City Teacher of the Year. Now retired from public school, he continues to work as a teacher at the Albany Open School and travels throughout the United States to call for radical reform of the public school system.
“Your words hit the nail on the head. Our schools do not leave children any free time for social life and communication with parents. We really need your ideas."
Bonnie McKeon
Capon Springs, West Virginia
“I heard your speech on the news program and completely agree with you. When I first started teaching here, I was struck by the similarities with New York - the same crazy principles, the same crazy rules, the same crazy actions, the same lack of education."
Ed Rochut
teacher and researcher, Omaha, Nebraska
“You have very clearly described the concern and anxiety I feel trying to teach children in a society that drills well but does not educate. My answer: amen, amen, amen!
Kathleen Trumble,
teacher, Silver Bay, Montana
“I am not a teacher, not a parent or a politician. I am a product of the problems you describe. I had a passion for learning, I met several wonderful teachers in my life and received a diploma, but very soon I realized how useless this whole experience was for me. Parents and students, especially students, should know what you are talking about.”
Praya Desai,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“People like John Gatto who have the courage and tenacity to stand up to the bureaucratic hierarchy are considered troublemakers. But the principles that John defends are not new or radical, but fundamental to any process of knowledge. The fact that they run counter to the actions of modern education officials shows how far these officials have strayed from the true purpose of their professional activities.”
Ron Hitchon
Secaucus, New Jersey
“Your analysis of the crisis in the public education system, how it differs from what people actually need, and the relationship you show between school, television, and the apathetic, blinkered worldview that prevails among Americans reveals the roots of the breakdown of our society.”
David Werner
Palo Alto, California
“What you are talking about is really happening. You are absolutely right that our schooling aims to make people manageable and their lives controllable.”
Alfred T. Apatang,
Rota, Minnesota
“You enlightened me and scared me. I will think about many, many things, but especially how to bring the living spirit of real life back into my classroom to help students feel its wholeness.”
Ruth Schmitt
Tuba City, Arizona
“The highest reward for you as a teacher is your wonderful students.”
Bob Kerry,
Senator, Nebraska
“I am delighted with your analysis, understanding of the situation and recommendations.”
Pat Farenga
John Holt Association
From Russian publishers
Dear reader!
Here is a book by the famous American teacher John Gatto. A teacher who thinks, feels and truly loves children. What he writes about the education system does not lie on the surface, and yet after reading the book one gets the impression that everything the author said is quite obvious. It’s just that for those who are part of the educational system, for those who are accustomed to the order of things that has existed for decades, it is difficult to see from the inside what is happening unless they set themselves such a task.
J. Gatto, who has worked in schools for decades, thoroughly knowing all the processes taking place in the school, gives a clear analysis of the goals and objectives of the system as a whole, and this view largely helps to line up the individual negative aspects that children face at school, parents and teachers. Despite the fact that we are talking about an American school, everything that has been said is strikingly reminiscent of the situation characteristic of Russian schools, and more and more every year. That is why we decided to translate this book.
Most of children's lives are spent at school. School has a huge impact on the formation of a person’s views and worldview. Modern life is such that parents have less and less time to communicate with their children and raise them. Therefore, it is easier to rely on the school to do it. And there is no time to think about what exactly happens to children at school, what they are taught there.
J. Gatto writes that one way or another, the school primarily fulfills the social order, preparing children to solve its problems. The school is a puppet factory; at the heart of the compulsory education system itself is the desire to make people more limited, more obedient, more manageable. The goals can be declared in a variety of ways, but the ultimate goal is exactly that, and one must be aware of this - this is what G. Gatto says in his book. The child’s individuality, his thoughts and dreams, his personal qualities are unclaimed.
In addition to specific knowledge, school also gives a lot more: it shapes the attitude towards oneself, towards other people, towards business, and the attitude towards the world as a whole. Here are the main lessons that the author believes the school provides.
First lesson– this is a lesson in unsystematicity. Everything that children are taught is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything.
Second lesson– people can and should be divided into groups: every cricket knows its nest. (Even before entering school, the struggle for a place in a prestigious educational institution begins, and children who end up, for example, in a gymnasium class or in a privileged school, look down on their less fortunate peers.)
Third lesson- a lesson in an indifferent attitude to business: when the school bell rings, children should immediately drop everything they were doing before, no matter how important the process is, and quickly run to the next lesson. As a result, students never fully understand anything.
Lesson four– this is a lesson in emotional dependence. Through stars, red checkmarks, smiles, frowns, prizes, honors and punishments, the school teaches children to submit their will to the command system.
Fifth lesson– a lesson in intellectual dependence. Students wait for the teacher to tell them what to do. In fact, children should simply reproduce what is put into them, without adding any of their own assessment, without showing initiative.
Sixth lesson. School teaches children that their self-image is determined by the opinions of others.
Seventh lesson– complete control. Children actually have no personal space, no personal time.
Isn't it hard to disagree with these statements? The grandiose educational system exists as if on its own. It functions and grows according to its own laws, while the child with his problems and interests remains increasingly on the sidelines. Take, for example, the preparatory groups operating at every school: they teach children to write, read, count, teach foreign languages, completely without correlating the grandiose programs with the real necessity and expediency of this knowledge, with the capabilities and needs of the children themselves, and often harming their mental and physical development.
The existing education system separates generations and makes it impossible to transfer ordinary life knowledge and skills from older to younger. The knowledge that school gives is often completely abstract and divorced from real life.
What is the way out of the situation? How to make sure that children do not lose their keen interest in knowledge, do not become conformists, or become cynics?
G. Gatto sees a solution in providing freedom of choice for the form of education for everyone, in increasing the role of the family in the upbringing and education of children: “Return the taxes collected from them to families so that they can look for and choose teachers themselves - they will be excellent buyers if they get the opportunity compare. Trust families, communities, and individuals to find the answer to an important question for themselves: "Why do we education?"".
This article is a review of the book by American author John Gatto “Puppet Factory. Confession of a School Teacher”, which was published in the series “Happiness as a Way of Life” by the Moscow publishing house “Genesis”.
Most of children's lives are spent at school. School has a huge impact on the formation of a person’s views and worldview. Modern life is such that parents have less and less time to spend with their children and raise them. Therefore, it is easier to rely on the school to do this. And there is no time to think about what exactly happens to children at school, what they are taught there.
J. Gatto in his book “Puppet Factory. Confession of a School Teacher” writes that one way or another, the school first of all fulfills the social order, preparing children to solve its problems. The school is a puppet factory; at the heart of the compulsory education system itself is the desire to make people more limited, more obedient, more manageable. The goals can be declared very different, but the ultimate goal is exactly that, and we must be aware of this. The child’s individuality, his thoughts and dreams, his personal qualities are unclaimed.
Quote from the book:
Over twenty-five years of teaching at school, I noticed a stunning phenomenon: schools and the entire education system have less and less to do with the great events and undertakings of the planet. Nobody believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes, that those who excel in social studies classes become politicians, and those who shine in their native language classes become poets. Schools don't really teach anything other than obeying orders. Thousands of kind, caring people work as teachers in schools, but the abstract logic of this social institution absorbs their individual contributions. And although teachers are, as a rule, caring people, and they work very, very hard, the institution of school itself is immoral. The bell rings, and the young man, engrossed in writing a poem, must quickly close his notebook and move to another chamber, where he will learn that humans and apes descend from a common ancestor.
In addition to specific knowledge, school also gives a lot more: it shapes the attitude towards oneself, towards other people, towards business, and the attitude towards the world as a whole. Here are the main lessons that the author believes the school provides.
The first lesson is the lesson of haphazardness.
Everything that children are taught is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything.
Quote from the book:
Some time ago, a woman named Kathy from DuBois, Indiana wrote to me the following: “What big ideas are important for little children? The most important thing is to let them know that the choice of what they learn is not someone's random whim, that there is a certain system to everything, that information does not just rain on them while they helplessly try to absorb it. This is the task - to help understand the interconnectedness of everything, to make the information picture holistic.
Katie is wrong. Just the first lesson I teach children is the lesson of unsystematicity. Everything I teach them is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything. Upon closer examination, even in the best schools, the content and structure of the curriculum suffers from a lack of logic and is full of internal contradictions. Fortunately, children cannot express in words the confusion and irritation that they experience from the constant violation of the natural order of things imposed on them under the brand name of quality education. The goal of the school system is to develop in children a superficial vocabulary in the fields of economics, sociology, natural sciences, etc., and not a real passion for something specific. But quality education requires deep study of anything. Children are confused by the huge number of different adults working alone, with little or no contact with each other, claiming to impart experience that they often do not possess themselves.”
The second lesson is that people can and should be divided into groups: every cricket knows its nest.
Even before entering school, the struggle for a place in a prestigious educational institution begins and children who end up, for example, in a gymnasium class or in a privileged school look down on their less fortunate peers.
The third lesson is the lesson of an indifferent attitude to the matter:
When the school bell rings, children should immediately drop everything they were doing before, no matter how important the process may be, and quickly run to the next lesson. As a result, students never fully understand anything.
Quote from the book:
Indeed, school bells teach that no job is worth completing, so why worry deeply about anything? Years of living on the clock teach all but the strongest that there is nothing in the world that is more important than sticking to a schedule. Bells are exponents of the secret logic of school time; their power is inexorable. The bells destroy the past and the future, making all breaks similar to each other, just as the abstraction of a map makes all the mountains and rivers similar to each other, although in reality they are not. The calls fill any endeavor with indifference.
The fourth lesson is the lesson of emotional dependence.
Through grades, smiles, frowns, prizes, certificates, honors and punishments, the school teaches children to submit their will to the command system.The fifth lesson is the lesson of intellectual dependence.
Students wait for the teacher to tell them what to do. In fact, children should simply reproduce what is put into them, without adding any of their own assessment, without showing initiative.
Quote from the book:
The most important lesson that children receive throughout their school life is the thesis that in life one can and should rely on the opinions of other people - smarter, more experienced, more educated. Only I, the teacher, have the right to decide what exactly my children will learn, or rather, those who pay me make decisions that I then implement. If I am told that evolution is a fact and not a theory, I pass it on without arguing about it and punishing apostates who refuse to think as the educational authorities see fit. The right to control children's thoughts, to decide what exactly they should think about this or that matter, allows me to easily divide students into successful and unsuccessful.
Successful children think this way, this is what I tell them to do, without much resistance and even showing some enthusiasm. Of the millions of things worthy of study, I decide which ones we can pay attention to, or rather, my faceless employers decide. The choice is theirs, why argue? Curiosity does not play any significant role in my work; only conformity is valued.
Unsuccessful children resist this, and although they do not have a clear idea of what exactly they are struggling with, they defend the right to decide for themselves what and when to teach. Can the teacher allow them to behave this way? Of course not. Fortunately, there are proven ways to break the will of rebels; The situation is more complicated with children whose parents support them and rush to their aid. But this happens less and less often, despite the fact that the school’s reputation in society is falling. None of the middle-class parents I met accepted that it was not their child who was wrong, but the school in which he studies. Not a single parent in all twenty-six years of teaching! This is an amazing fact that best illustrates what happens to families where both mother and father have mastered the seven core curriculum subjects perfectly.
People are waiting for a specialist to tell them what to do. It is no exaggeration to say that our entire economy depends on how well this lesson is learned. Just think what could happen if our children are not taught addiction: social services are unlikely to survive; I think they will disappear into the historical oblivion that gave birth to them. All kinds of consultants and psychoanalysts will watch in horror as the flow of people with psychological problems melts away. Commercial entertainment of all kinds, including television, will die out as people learn to entertain themselves again. Restaurants, the processed food industry, and all sorts of other foodservice-related services will lose significant ground if people return to home-cooked meals and stop relying on outsiders to select and prepare food. The need for legal, medical and engineering services will be significantly reduced, as will the need for tailoring and teaching schoolchildren.
But all this can be avoided if our schools annually produce streams of helpless people. Don't rush to vote for sweeping school reform if you want to still get paid regularly. We built a system based on the fact that people do what they are told, since they themselves cannot decide anything. This is one of the main lessons I teach.
Sixth lesson. School teaches children that their self-image is determined by the opinions of others.
Quote from the book:
If you've ever tried to rein in children whose parents told them they would love them no matter what, you know how difficult it is to break the strong-willed. Our social system cannot handle the flow of self-confident people, so I teach children that their self-esteem should depend on the opinion of an expert. My students are constantly tested and assessed.
The seventh lesson is complete control.
Children actually have no personal space, no personal time.
Quote from the book:
The school continues its influence on the child at home, giving him homework that he must complete. The feeling of constant surveillance thus extends to home life, in which, if there was free time, students might learn something unsanctioned from their parents, learn something from their own experience, or from observing someone else's wise behavior. Disloyalty to the ideas of schooling is something that the school desperately fears; it is perceived by it as the devil, always ready to break out.
Isn't it hard to disagree with these statements? The grandiose educational system exists as if on its own. It functions and grows according to its own laws, while the child with his problems and interests remains increasingly on the sidelines. Take, for example, the preparatory groups operating at every school: they teach children to write, read, count, teach foreign languages, completely without correlating the grandiose programs with the real necessity and expediency of this knowledge, with the capabilities and needs of the children themselves, and often harming their mental and physical development.
The existing education system separates generations and makes it impossible to transfer ordinary life knowledge and skills from older to younger. The knowledge that school gives is often completely abstract and divorced from real life.
What is the way out of the situation? How to make sure that children do not lose their keen interest in knowledge, do not become conformists, or become cynics?
G. Gatto sees it in providing freedom of choice for the form of education for everyone, in increasing the role of the family in the upbringing and education of children:
Give families back their tax dollars so they can search for and choose teachers themselves - they'll be great shoppers if they can compare. Trust families, communities, and individuals to find the answer to the important question: “Why do we need education?
Perhaps this answer is idealistic. But in this case it doesn't matter. The main thing for us is that this book makes both teachers and parents think about how the existing education system affects our children.
We would not, however, want Gatto’s book to be perceived as an anti-school manifesto, as a call for “revolution.” Do we think that children should not be sent to school at all? No, of course not, although it is possible. Maybe we think that we need to remake teachers, forcing them to change their professional and life attitudes? No, either, because within the framework of the existing system this is simply impossible, and it is not necessary. Appealing to education officials also does not make much sense. You don't even need to explain why. Then why was the book written and why are we publishing it? The answer is simple and complex at the same time.
We address first of all to parents. Parents are different.
Among them there are those who do not think at all about what happens to children. Some, on the contrary, consider it necessary to control or at least accompany them throughout their school life. Some themselves did not like school and pass this dislike on to their children. Others believe that it is school that makes a person a person. Everything can be different, but very often, if not almost always, school is perceived as something inevitable, as a certain stage of life that must be survived no matter what. If you are lucky, the school years will be perceived as a meaningful and life-filled stage, and if not, then they will drag on, and drag on, and drag on, but... nothing can be done, you have to endure. So - it’s not at all necessary. You can change everything - you can change schools, teachers, you can even teach your child at home, in the end. You can find many ways out that will help the child, and maybe even save him. But this requires courage, which comes from confidence in yourself and your child. But this is precisely the problem. Because when parents are guided by the demands of the school system, not realizing that this system primarily pursues its own goals, they stop feeling the child, stop believing in him and listening to themselves. The main thing becomes - to stay in the system, to meet its requirements at any cost.
There is an opinion that school accustoms a child to the harsh laws of life. But this is not so. Each person chooses his own life, and it does not necessarily have to be the same as at school. And if you have your own life, then it’s worth thinking about: does it make sense to limit your child’s stay in this special life of yours and trust his system, which may be very different from your idea of life? You should spend less time at school, not more - this is how G. Gatto answers this question. Do you want to pass on your values to your child? So let your child feel these values of yours, live a common life with him, listen to his and your needs. And this will be much more useful than his stay in the best gymnasium in your city!
I dedicate this book to my granddaughter,
whose name is translated from Icelandic
means "Holy Scripture".
Shine and shine in the darkness, Gvutrun!
John Taylor Gatto He worked as a teacher in the Manhattan public schools for twenty-six years. He has a number of state awards for outstanding achievements in the field of education. In 1991 he was recognized as New York City Teacher of the Year. Now retired from public school, he continues to work as a teacher at the Albany Open School and travels throughout the United States to call for radical reform of the public school system.
“Your words hit the nail on the head. Our schools do not leave children any free time for social life and communication with parents. We really need your ideas."
Bonnie McKeon
Capon Springs, West Virginia
“I heard your speech on the news program and completely agree with you. When I first started teaching here, I was struck by the similarities with New York - the same crazy principles, the same crazy rules, the same crazy actions, the same lack of education."
Ed Rochut
teacher and researcher, Omaha, Nebraska
“You have very clearly described the concern and anxiety I feel trying to teach children in a society that drills well but does not educate. My answer: amen, amen, amen!
Kathleen Trumble,
teacher, Silver Bay, Montana
“I am not a teacher, not a parent or a politician. I am a product of the problems you describe. I had a passion for learning, I met several wonderful teachers in my life and received a diploma, but very soon I realized how useless this whole experience was for me. Parents and students, especially students, should know what you are talking about.”
Praya Desai,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“People like John Gatto who have the courage and tenacity to stand up to the bureaucratic hierarchy are considered troublemakers. But the principles that John defends are not new or radical, but fundamental to any process of knowledge. The fact that they run counter to the actions of modern education officials shows how far these officials have strayed from the true purpose of their professional activities.”
Ron Hitchon
Secaucus, New Jersey
“Your analysis of the crisis in the public education system, how it differs from what people actually need, and the relationship you show between school, television, and the apathetic, blinkered worldview that prevails among Americans reveals the roots of the breakdown of our society.”
David Werner
Palo Alto, California
“What you are talking about is really happening. You are absolutely right that our schooling aims to make people manageable and their lives controllable.”
Alfred T. Apatang,
Rota, Minnesota
“You enlightened me and scared me. I will think about many, many things, but especially how to bring the living spirit of real life back into my classroom to help students feel its wholeness.”
Ruth Schmitt
Tuba City, Arizona
“The highest reward for you as a teacher is your wonderful students.”
Bob Kerry,
Senator, Nebraska
“I am delighted with your analysis, understanding of the situation and recommendations.”
Pat Farenga
John Holt Association
From Russian publishers
Dear reader!
Here is a book by the famous American teacher John Gatto. A teacher who thinks, feels and truly loves children. What he writes about the education system does not lie on the surface, and yet after reading the book one gets the impression that everything the author said is quite obvious. It’s just that for those who are part of the educational system, for those who are accustomed to the order of things that has existed for decades, it is difficult to see from the inside what is happening unless they set themselves such a task.
J. Gatto, who has worked in schools for decades, thoroughly knowing all the processes taking place in the school, gives a clear analysis of the goals and objectives of the system as a whole, and this view largely helps to line up the individual negative aspects that children face at school, parents and teachers. Despite the fact that we are talking about an American school, everything that has been said is strikingly reminiscent of the situation characteristic of Russian schools, and more and more every year. That is why we decided to translate this book.
Most of children's lives are spent at school. School has a huge impact on the formation of a person’s views and worldview. Modern life is such that parents have less and less time to communicate with their children and raise them. Therefore, it is easier to rely on the school to do it. And there is no time to think about what exactly happens to children at school, what they are taught there.
J. Gatto writes that one way or another, the school primarily fulfills the social order, preparing children to solve its problems. The school is a puppet factory; at the heart of the compulsory education system itself is the desire to make people more limited, more obedient, more manageable. The goals can be declared in a variety of ways, but the ultimate goal is exactly that, and one must be aware of this - this is what G. Gatto says in his book. The child’s individuality, his thoughts and dreams, his personal qualities are unclaimed.
In addition to specific knowledge, school also gives a lot more: it shapes the attitude towards oneself, towards other people, towards business, and the attitude towards the world as a whole. Here are the main lessons that the author believes the school provides.
First lesson– this is a lesson in unsystematicity. Everything that children are taught is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything.
Second lesson– people can and should be divided into groups: every cricket knows its nest. (Even before entering school, the struggle for a place in a prestigious educational institution begins, and children who end up, for example, in a gymnasium class or in a privileged school, look down on their less fortunate peers.)
Third lesson- a lesson in an indifferent attitude to business: when the school bell rings, children should immediately drop everything they were doing before, no matter how important the process is, and quickly run to the next lesson. As a result, students never fully understand anything.
Lesson four– this is a lesson in emotional dependence. Through stars, red checkmarks, smiles, frowns, prizes, honors and punishments, the school teaches children to submit their will to the command system.
Fifth lesson– a lesson in intellectual dependence. Students wait for the teacher to tell them what to do. In fact, children should simply reproduce what is put into them, without adding any of their own assessment, without showing initiative.
Sixth lesson. School teaches children that their self-image is determined by the opinions of others.
Seventh lesson– complete control. Children actually have no personal space, no personal time.
Isn't it hard to disagree with these statements? The grandiose educational system exists as if on its own. It functions and grows according to its own laws, while the child with his problems and interests remains increasingly on the sidelines. Take, for example, the preparatory groups operating at every school: they teach children to write, read, count, teach foreign languages, completely without correlating the grandiose programs with the real necessity and expediency of this knowledge, with the capabilities and needs of the children themselves, and often harming their mental and physical development.
In addition to specific knowledge, school also gives a lot more: it shapes the attitude towards oneself, towards other people, towards business, and the attitude towards the world as a whole. Here are the main lessons that the author believes the school provides.
First lesson- this is a lesson in haphazardness. Everything that children are taught is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything.
Second lesson- people can and should be divided into groups: every cricket knows its nest. (Even before entering school, the struggle for a place in a prestigious educational institution begins, and children who end up, for example, in a gymnasium class or in a privileged school, look down on their less fortunate peers.)
Third lesson- a lesson in an indifferent attitude to business: when the school bell rings, children should immediately drop everything they were doing before, no matter how important the process is, and quickly run to the next lesson. As a result, students never fully understand anything.
Lesson four- this is a lesson in emotional dependence. Through stars, red checkmarks, smiles, frowns, prizes, honors and punishments, the school teaches children to submit their will to the command system.
Fifth lesson- a lesson in intellectual dependence. Students wait for the teacher to tell them what to do. In fact, children should simply reproduce what is put into them, without adding any of their own assessment, without showing initiative.
Sixth lesson. School teaches children that their self-image is determined by the opinions of others.
Seventh lesson- complete control. Children actually have no personal space, no personal time.
Reader comments
Sergius/ 11/23/2018 Tanya / 03/21/2015 WRITES:
Stop arguing......
People are a resource, nothing more.
And no one will remember about you. - humble yourself.
................................................................
NO-ZA-FTO!!! ;)))
Sanya/ 11/20/2018 The book is good. Many ideas seemed intuitive. After reading, everything was systematized. I won’t distract you with my observations. I would like to roll only one. The author devotes a lot of attention to the issue of children's health, which deteriorates greatly during school. On this occasion, in addition to this book, read Evgeny Bazarny - Child of Man. The author devoted more than 30 years of his life to issues of pedagogy and children's health. Written simply and popularly, and at the same time, serious scientific works by him and his colleagues. And about the last few years of school reform, you can read the book by O.N. Chetverikov - Destruction of the Future. Who and how is destroying a sovereign entity in Russia. It sets out the facts, who said what when, what decisions and laws were adopted. Good selection of facts and documents. At the same time, the author supports the Soviet education system while turning a blind eye to the shortcomings of the “Soviet” education system, as well as to the objective need for education reform in a rapidly changing world (that is, it is no longer objectively possible to teach the old way)
Alexander aka xilore/ 04/28/2017 On the topic - the book "Education in the New Century" - Alice A. Bailey. A classic of esotericism, tested by more than one generation of students of the Spirit-Consciousness of Life-Goddess-God-Source-Brahman. There are solutions there. Thank you for your attention and application of everything that is for the benefit of Everything and everyone - “neighbor” (all parts of the Living Whole Body of Creation - manifestation of the Creative Spirit).
Sergey/ 01/22/2016 I also guessed a lot intuitively, but could not systematize it in my head. Having weighed all the pros and cons, I came to the conclusion that in our time we still cannot do without school. And the point is not only that the child will not be able to read and write, and then get a specialty that will feed him. A child learns to live in a social society, he learns to achieve success. Of course, there are also negative examples when school destroys the psyche. But here an important detail comes to mind - parents should not lose sight of their child’s studies. We must complement it, correct the resulting worldview in a positive direction. In a word, no one has canceled education. Well, choosing a school and a teacher is also important.
Tanya/ 03/21/2015 Stop arguing. The question is not whether the education system is necessary. This is not the first wave of people being raised who are able to live in the mode: work, sleep.
People are a resource, nothing more.
And no one will remember about you. Humble yourself.
Novel/ 03/26/2014 Anyone who had a desire to find out something will be repulsed in a moment.
"The first lesson is the lesson of haphazardness. Everything that children are taught is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything." - called fragmentary idiocy, it is done on purpose so that no one understands anything. Visibility of learning.
Zaya/ 03/25/2014 A very good book... What’s interesting is that I intuitively already knew about a lot of what the author writes about, and after reading the book, a certain kaleidoscope of disparate beliefs turned into a clear normal picture, making it clear what our obligatory school education.
Alexei/ 10.10.2013 And we really haven’t had chalk since the beginning of the school year (2 months ago: (Don’t attack teachers: in most cases, these enthusiasts are trying to educate a person through the means of their subject. And that the education system needs to be changed, like everything over time,
Any literate person can understand this. But the government has no time for it... Nobody has extra chalk?
Andrey/ 03/06/2013 The book is quite interesting. The author is truly an ardent critic of school education, despite the fact that he himself was a teacher. There are indeed many problems in education, but sometimes there are not enough words to express it clearly. So the book “Puppet Factory” allows you to do this, at least enter into dialogue with those who impose school education and consider it a good deed. The book largely shows the problems, but the solutions to this problem still remain vague.
Thanks to the Cube Library for the opportunity to read this book. You can also read a detailed review on my blog: http://my-review-book.com/
Southerner/ 03/2/2012 The book is very useful. Allows us to reflect on our school system. You just have to read it carefully! The main idea is that schools need reform. After all, children are truly cut off from life; while generations of our parents, while still in school, went on excursions to factories and factories, now children have no idea about this, they learn everything “on their fingers.” Is it normal to divide children into groups - gymnasium classes and simple classes?
Uka/ 11/26/2011 Quite a controversial book in essence. On the one hand, everything is smooth. An idyllic picture is already being drawn in my thoughts... Small schools... Private lessons... Village... Community... Pastorality just rushes on. But on the other hand, not everything is so smooth. The school system exists the way it does for a reason. This is an attempt to optimize secondary education for those who cannot pay for private lessons in the city. Now, by the way, no one is stopping parents from teaching their children what they consider necessary outside of school. Yes please, so to speak. So, I think that the problems of the school revealed in the book are, rather, problems of the entire system. And this system, along with many disadvantages, also has significant advantages. Non-standard teaching is the disappearance of science IN PRINCIPLE. Of course, even now it is being destroyed. But for completely different reasons. Moreover, the poor will never be able to afford to hire teachers. And now - please, study at school, study at home. Who's stopping? The school curriculum is now very simple, you can’t complain about the abundance of knowledge. The problem of time, in my opinion, has been made out of nothing.
Catalin/ 04/13/2011 Secondary education should be abolished.
Can you read and write? - to work!
All traditional civilizations agreed that if a person does not support himself
from 12-13 years old, labor prices, parental
care and, in fact, education itself
won’t understand. And we are raising irresponsible and cynical boors.
Make education a forbidden fruit, and people will be drawn to it.
This is the first. Next; programs are calculated
on donkeys. Take foreign language. If a group of languages were taught at the same time,
then through comparative linguistics, the idea of language families and borrowing could
intensify the process many times.
Third. A teacher is a calling. They are like
There can’t be too many thinkers or artists!
Fourth. From 14 to 19 it is time to love. Other things are poorly absorbed.
Sannyasin/ 04/2/2011 A primary school teacher called the children to the blackboard to solve arithmetic problems.
“There’s no chalk,” said one boy.
“You can’t say that,” answered the teacher. - You need to say this: I don’t have chalk, you don’t have chalk, we don’t have chalk, they don’t have chalk. Do you understand now?
- No, what happened to all this chalk? Honestly speaking, remembering my school years and understanding what they do to children... I just want to tell these tormentors. For the good of the child (as it seems to them), they torture children. I advise everyone who has children to trust their children more than these cunning teachers .
Tim/ 04/2/2011 slaves need to be educated from childhood
dr OX/ 02/3/2011 Absolutely right. This is the kind of presentation of knowledge that forms in children the so-called “Kaleidoscopic idiocy” (a term from KOB).
Andrey/ 01/20/2011 Ksyu, this means that there is no system in terms of education. And so you are right, the school is a continuous system, only not an educational one, but a system for creating puppets.
- / 01/20/2011 My God, when will this end? I am a school student. And I can say that the author says what it really is. But no one wants to open their eyes. The system must be destroyed.
La la/ 11/30/2010 Well, maybe at least they will start paying more attention to the children... After all, it’s customary for us to blame everything on the school - both the bad and the bad, while we ourselves are on the sidelines... We read everything - we think whether they have neglected the children.
passerby/ 07/09/2010 Ksya needs to go to the furnace herself. Can't you see the forest for the trees, girl?
Ksyu/ 06/23/2010 The first lesson contradicts the second and third. Alternating lessons and rest is a system. The distribution of schoolchildren into weak and strong classes is a system. The school, on the contrary, is one continuous system. The author is in the furnace.
John Taylor Gatto
“Puppet Factory. Confession of a School Teacher": Genesis; M.; 2006
ISBN 5‑98563‑097‑8, 0‑86571‑231‑Х
annotation
The book by the famous American educator and writer John Gatto exposes the evils of the compulsory public school system and criticizes its basic postulates. According to the author, school expansion deprives children of the free time they need to independently explore the world and real life. Instead, they learn to follow orders without question and to be well-functioning cogs in the machine of industrial society.
Self-knowledge, participation in real life with its real problems, the opportunity to exercise independence and gain experience in different areas of life - this is what would allow children to break through the shackles of a modern conformist society. The author calls for limiting the influence of the school on the child, finding ways to involve children and families in the real life of society.
The book is addressed to a wide range of readers.
John Taylor Gatto
Puppet factory. Confession of a school teacher
I dedicate this book to my granddaughter,
whose name is translated from Icelandic
means "Holy Scripture".
Shine and shine in the darkness, Gvutrun!
John Taylor Gatto He worked as a teacher in the Manhattan public schools for twenty-six years. He has a number of state awards for outstanding achievements in the field of education. In 1991 he was recognized as New York City Teacher of the Year. Now retired from public school, he continues to work as a teacher at the Albany Open School and travels throughout the United States to call for radical reform of the public school system.
“Your words hit the nail on the head. Our schools do not leave children any free time for social life and communication with parents. We really need your ideas."
Bonnie McKeon
Capon Springs, West Virginia
“I heard your speech on the news program and completely agree with you. When I first started teaching here, I was struck by the similarities with New York - the same crazy principles, the same crazy rules, the same crazy actions, the same lack of education."
Ed Rochut
teacher and researcher, Omaha, Nebraska
“You have very clearly described the concern and anxiety I feel trying to teach children in a society that drills well but does not educate. My answer: amen, amen, amen!
Kathleen Trumble,
teacher, Silver Bay, Montana
“I am not a teacher, not a parent or a politician. I am a product of the problems you describe. I had a passion for learning, I met several wonderful teachers in my life and received a diploma, but very soon I realized how useless this whole experience was for me. Parents and students, especially students, should know what you are talking about.”
Praya Desai,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“People like John Gatto who have the courage and tenacity to stand up to the bureaucratic hierarchy are considered troublemakers. But the principles that John defends are not new or radical, but fundamental to any process of knowledge. The fact that they run counter to the actions of modern education officials shows how far these officials have strayed from the true purpose of their professional activities.”
Ron Hitchon
Secaucus, New Jersey
“Your analysis of the crisis in the public education system, how it differs from what people actually need, and the relationship you show between school, television, and the apathetic, blinkered worldview that prevails among Americans reveals the roots of the breakdown of our society.”
David Werner
Palo Alto, California
“What you are talking about is really happening. You are absolutely right that our schooling aims to make people manageable and their lives controllable.”
Alfred T. Apatang,
Rota, Minnesota
“You enlightened me and scared me. I will think about many, many things, but especially about how to bring the living spirit of real life back into my classroom to help students feel its wholeness.”
Ruth Schmitt
Tuba City, Arizona
“The highest reward for you as a teacher is your wonderful students.”
Bob Kerry,
Senator, Nebraska
“I am delighted with your analysis, understanding of the situation and recommendations.”
Pat Farenga
John Holt Association
From Russian publishers
Dear reader!
Here is a book by the famous American teacher John Gatto. A teacher who thinks, feels and truly loves children. What he writes about the education system does not lie on the surface, and yet after reading the book one gets the impression that everything the author said is quite obvious. It’s just that for those who are part of the educational system, for those who are accustomed to the order of things that has existed for decades, it is difficult to see from the inside what is happening unless they set themselves such a task.
J. Gatto, who has worked in schools for decades, thoroughly knowing all the processes taking place in the school, gives a clear analysis of the goals and objectives of the system as a whole, and this view largely helps to line up the individual negative aspects that children face at school, parents and teachers. Despite the fact that we are talking about an American school, everything that has been said is strikingly reminiscent of the situation characteristic of Russian schools, and more and more every year. That is why we decided to translate this book.
Most of children's lives are spent at school. School has a huge impact on the formation of a person’s views and worldview. Modern life is such that parents have less and less time to communicate with their children and raise them. Therefore, it is easier to rely on the school to do it. And there is no time to think about what exactly happens to children at school, what they are taught there.
J. Gatto writes that one way or another, the school primarily fulfills the social order, preparing children to solve its problems. The school is a puppet factory; at the heart of the compulsory education system itself is the desire to make people more limited, more obedient, more manageable. The goals can be declared in a variety of ways, but the ultimate goal is exactly that, and one must be aware of this - this is what G. Gatto says in his book. The child’s individuality, his thoughts and dreams, his personal qualities are unclaimed.
In addition to specific knowledge, school also gives a lot more: it shapes the attitude towards oneself, towards other people, towards business, and the attitude towards the world as a whole. Here are the main lessons that the author believes the school provides.
First lesson– this is a lesson in unsystematicity. Everything that children are taught is given without any context. Nothing is connected to anything.
Second lesson– people can and should be divided into groups: every cricket knows its nest. (Even before entering school, the struggle for a place in a prestigious educational institution begins, and children who end up, for example, in a gymnasium class or in a privileged school, look down on their less fortunate peers.)
Third lesson- a lesson in an indifferent attitude to business: when the school bell rings, children should immediately drop everything they were doing before, no matter how important the process is, and quickly run to the next lesson. As a result, students never fully understand anything.
Lesson four– this is a lesson in emotional dependence. Through stars, red checkmarks, smiles, frowns, prizes, honors and punishments, the school teaches children to submit their will to the command system.
Fifth lesson– a lesson in intellectual dependence. Students wait for the teacher to tell them what to do. In fact, children should simply reproduce what is put into them, without adding any of their own assessment, without showing initiative.
Sixth lesson. School teaches children that their self-image is determined by the opinions of others.
Seventh lesson– complete control. Children actually have no personal space, no personal time.
Isn't it hard to disagree with these statements? The grandiose educational system exists as if on its own. It functions and grows according to its own laws, while the child with his problems and interests remains increasingly on the sidelines. Take, for example, the preparatory groups operating at every school: they teach children to write, read, count, teach foreign languages, completely without correlating the grandiose programs with the real necessity and expediency of this knowledge, with the capabilities and needs of the children themselves, and often harming their mental and physical development.
The existing education system separates generations and makes it impossible to transfer ordinary life knowledge and skills from older to younger. The knowledge that school gives is often completely abstract and divorced from real life.
What is the way out of the situation? How to make sure that children do not lose their keen interest in knowledge, do not become conformists, or become cynics?
G. Gatto sees a solution in providing freedom of choice for the form of education for everyone, in increasing the role of the family in the upbringing and education of children: “Return the taxes collected from them to families so that they can look for and choose teachers themselves - they will be excellent buyers if they get the opportunity compare. Trust families, communities, and individuals to find the answer to an important question for themselves: "Why do we education?"".
Perhaps this answer is idealistic. But in this case it doesn't matter. The main thing for us is that this book makes both teachers and parents think about how the existing education system affects our children.
We would not, however, want Gatto’s book to be perceived as an anti-school manifesto, as a call for “revolution.” Do we think that children should not be sent to school at all? No, of course not, although it is possible. Maybe we think that we need to remake teachers, forcing them to change their professional and life attitudes? No, either, because within the framework of the existing system this is simply impossible, and it is not necessary. Appealing to education officials also does not make much sense. There's no need to even explain why. Then why was the book written and why are we publishing it? The answer is simple and complex at the same time.
We address first of all to parents. Parents are different.
Among them there are those who do not think at all about what happens to children. Some, on the contrary, consider it necessary to control or at least accompany them throughout their school life. Some themselves did not like school and pass this dislike on to their children. Others believe that it is school that makes a person a person. Everything can be different, but very often, if not almost always, school is perceived as something inevitable, as a certain stage of life that must be survived, no matter what. If you are lucky, the school years will be perceived as a meaningful and life-filled stage, and if not, then they will drag on, and drag on, and drag on, but... nothing can be done, you have to endure. So – it’s not at all necessary. You can change everything - you can change schools, teachers, you can even teach your child at home, in the end. You can find many ways out that will help the child, and maybe even save him. But this requires courage, which comes from confidence in yourself and your child. But this is precisely the problem. Because when parents are guided by the demands of the school system, not realizing that this system primarily pursues its own goals, they stop feeling the child, stop believing in him and listening to themselves. The main thing becomes - to stay in the system, to meet its requirements at any cost.
There is an opinion that school accustoms a child to the harsh laws of life. But this is not so. Each person chooses his own life, and it does not necessarily have to be the same as at school. And if you have your own life, then it’s worth thinking about whether it makes sense to limit your child’s stay in this special life of yours and trust his system, which may be very different from your idea of life? You should spend less time at school, not more - this is how G. Gatto answers this question. Do you want to pass on your values to your child? So let your child feel these values of yours, live a common life with him, listen to his and your needs. And this will be much more useful than his stay in the best gymnasium in your city!
Ekaterina Mukhamatulina,
publishing director
Olga Safuanova,
Chief Editor
From American Publishers
Social philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote: “The formation of beliefs has never been the goal of universal public education. The goal was to destroy the ability to form them independently.”
If you ask teachers what they consider the goals of our education system, then I suspect there will be as many opinions as there are respondents. But I also suspect that not often on this list will be the development of the ability to form one's own beliefs regardless of what is taught in school, and the ability to think critically based on one's own experiences. Most likely, the idea that what happens within the walls of a school is loosely connected with the proclaimed goals of education will seem like heresy to most teachers.
As parents, we always want the “best” for our children. But our own actions and lifestyles, as well as the demands we place on the education system, show that “better” too often means “more” for us. The shift from qualitative to quantitative, from concern for the spiritual development of the individual to concerns about the development of various institutions of the semi-monopoly system of public education certainly does not stand up to criticism.
Shouldn't we ask ourselves what the consequences of the race to provide our children with "the best possible" will be in a world of rapidly dwindling natural resources? What does the crazy, often based on brutal competition, teach our children - for increasing salaries for teachers, for purchasing additional equipment, for allocating additional funds to schools? Moreover, how should those children who, through no fault of their own, lose in it, perceive this crazy race? And if our children’s beliefs are formed based on their experiences, then how will this whole situation affect the life of society? (We may already be paying for the development of such beliefs with the increase in violence, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and a whole host of other social evils that have afflicted today's youth.)
John Taylor Gatto's eclectic, fascinating, hard-to-categorize, but grounded in practical wisdom forces us to reconsider some of the principles dearest to our hearts. Gatto does not provide ready-made solutions or formulate optimistic forecasts regarding the future of our schools. He strives, as exemplified by his twenty-six years of teaching experience, firstly, to give all children, including the poor and disadvantaged, the opportunity to receive quality education and secondly, to instill in their students the ability to think critically so that they can analyze and understand what the school system is doing to them.
Our social system seems gloomy to John Gatto, but not hopeless. He sees a ray of hope in the voluntary unification of free-thinking and critical people into communities that can correct social ills and lead us to a worthy future. Because we share the belief that this is necessary and possible, we at New Society Publishers are proud to publish the book “Puppet Factory. Confession of a school teacher."
David Albert,
on behalf of New Society Publishers
For the past twenty-six years I have been a school teacher in New York City. During part of this time I taught in elite schools on the western side of Upper Manhattan. In recent years I have been teaching children in Harlem and Spanish Harlem. During my time as a teacher, I have been to six different schools, and now I teach at a school located at the foot of the largest Gothic structure in the United States, St. John's Cathedral, near the famous Natural History Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. About three blocks from my school, a few years ago, the “Central Park Jogger” (as the press dubbed her) was raped and brutally beaten; seven of the nine attackers attended a school in my area.
My own worldview, however, was formed far from New York, in the state of Pennsylvania, in the town of Monongahela, located on the banks of the river of the same name, forty miles southeast of Pittsburgh. In those years, Monongahela was a city of steel mills and coal mines, paddle steamers churning orange chemical foam on emerald river waters, a city where hard work and the values of family life were held in high esteem. In Monongahela, class differences were smoothed out, since everyone was more or less poor, although few were aware of this. Independence, fortitude and independence were honored here; ethnic and local culture were a source of special pride. Growing up in a place like this was great, even if you lived in poverty. People communicated with each other, were interested in each other, and not in some abstract “world” problems. The outside world extended no further than Pittsburgh, a dark steel town worthy only of being visited once or twice a year. However, in my memory, no one felt like a “prisoner” of Monongahela, no one suffered from opportunities that they could have had if they lived elsewhere.
My grandfather was a printer and published a local newspaper for some time The Daily Republican. Its name attracted attention, since the city was a stronghold of the Democratic Party. I learned a lot from my grandfather with his independent views; I would have been deprived of all this if I had grown up in a time like now, when old people are taken out of sight and put into nursing homes.
When I moved to New York, living in Manhattan felt like living on the moon. Even though I have lived here for thirty-five years, my soul remains in Monongahela. The shock I experienced from a completely different structure of society and a different value system contributed to my understanding of how differently people live. I feel not only like a teacher, but also an anthropologist. Over the past twenty-six years, I have had the opportunity to observe my students, encounter a wide range of feelings - from hopes to fears, think about what contributes to the development of their abilities and what slows them down. Through these observations, I came to the conclusion that genius is a very common human trait, probably shared by most of us. Internally I resisted this conclusion. Moreover, my own education at two elite universities was based on the premise that in society, the development of abilities is expressed in the form of a bell curve. Based on these mathematical, supposedly irrefutable scientific facts, a conclusion is drawn (John Calvin was the first to formulate it) about the strict predetermination of human destiny. In practice, the contradiction was that the “bad” students, whom the school rejected, repeatedly showed remarkable human qualities in their relationships with me: insight, wisdom, justice, ingenuity, courage, originality. This completely confused me. They did this not so often as to make my teaching job easier, but often enough to make me think: is it possible that in school such qualities remain completely unclaimed, moreover, the school suppresses them, demanding something completely different from children? Was I hired not to develop children, but to limit them? At first this thought seemed crazy to me, but gradually I came to the realization that school bells and restrictions on freedom, chaotic alternation of subjects and activities, age segregation, lack of personal space, constant supervision and everything else in the compulsory education system is arranged as if ‑ set a goal prevent so that children learn to think and act independently, and would like to teach them dependence and controlled behavior.
Step by step, I began to develop and, as far as possible, implement “guerrilla” methods that gave my students access to the resources that people from time immemorial have used for self-learning: personal space, the right to choose, freedom from constant control and supervision, the opportunity to gain their own experience, living a variety of life situations. Simply put, I tried to put them in a position where they became both their teachers and the objects of their own learning.
Figuratively speaking, the idea that I began to explore was this: teaching is not akin to painting, where the image is created by additions material to the surface; it looks more like a sculpture, where the method cutting off of everything superfluous, the image already enclosed in the stone is released. These are two radically different approaches. In other words, I abandoned the idea that I was some kind of super-specialist whose task was to fill small heads with my knowledge and experience. Instead, I began to find out how to remove the obstacles that prevent the natural genius of childhood from expressing itself. I began to be confused by the generally accepted definition of the goals of teaching as giving reason to resistant students. And although the very nature of the compulsory education system forces me to this day to make these pointless attempts, I have departed from traditional teaching dogma wherever possible and allowed each of the children to seek the path to their own truth.
Schools under the monopoly of the state are developing in such a direction that my methods, if they become widespread, will jeopardize the entire institution of public education. On a point scale, any teacher who has come to the same conclusions as me is, at worst, just an irritant for the command system (which has developed an automatic defense mechanism for isolating bacilli like me with their subsequent neutralization and destruction). But when widely disseminated, such ideas can undermine fundamental assumptions of the institutional education system, such as the false assertion that learning to read is difficult, or that children resist learning, and many others. In reality myself O The stability of our economy is threatened by any educational system that may change the nature of the human product produced by schools. The economy in which today's students must live and work will not support a generation of young people trained, for example, to think critically.
In my understanding, pedagogical success presupposes a large share of unconditional trust in children - trust that is not determined by any indicators. People must be given the opportunity to make their own mistakes and try new things, otherwise they will never become themselves and, although they may well make an impression competence, in reality they will only repeat what they have learned or imitate someone else’s behavior. My idea of pedagogical success is usually perceived as a challenge to many convenient generally accepted postulates about what makes sense to teach children and what material a happy life is woven from.
Since in subsequent essays I often operate with the concept of “family,” I would like to immediately make a reservation that each of us, in my opinion, must determine for himself what he or she means by this word. I am firmly convinced that no authority has the right to impose a unified concept of such diverse and vital structures that can be called “families”, nor has the right to subject them to any formal dogma.
Seven school subjects
Please call me Mr. Gatto. Twenty-six years ago, for lack of anything better, I went to work as a school teacher. My diploma says that I am a teacher of English language and literature, but this is not exactly what I do. I don’t teach English, I teach children what the state school system considers important and necessary, and I receive awards in this field.